"I fear that just like George "Passionate Conservatism" Bush, Mitt suffers from what I call "patrician's guilt" and that therefor he will have a strong tendency to crumble and crump under class warfare and race-baiting from the progressives-Dems."

Yes! He should speak with great pride of his families accomplishments as well as his own and spread hope, challenge and direction on how all of us can achieve great success just like the Romneys.

They achieved an American dream. This is what it is all about (unless your an MSLSD type). Show us the way Mitt!

He needs to spin it around. Do Americans want to be like him or have government welfare pay for their bills?

Who in their right mind wouldn't rather have the chance to be like him? He is great role model.

Obama's plan is we all be resigned to be a bunch of losers who envy and need a nanny state to feed and protect us.

What a contrasting picture! If this doesn't resonate with a majority - God help us.

President Barack Obama is far from winning re-election, but his “Truman strategy” — plus some mild improvement in economic conditions — seems to have improved his prospects. And Republicans are helping.

The strategy, of course, is to portray himself, much as President Harry Truman did in 1948, as the defender of the middle class and Republicans as obstructionists bent on defending the privileged rich.

Polls suggest he is hitting two political bull’s-eyes — disdain for Congressional Republicans and a belief that rich people ought to pay more taxes.

GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney’s estimate that he pays only a 15 percent rate on his millions of dollars in income — plus his rivals’ denunciations of him as a “vulture capitalist” — can only help Obama.

And so will replays of the GOP TV debate in which not one presidential candidate was willing to accept a deficit reduction formula of $10 in spending cuts for $1 in revenue increases.

Truman famously came from behind to win in 1948 running against a “do-nothing Republican Congress” and as the Washington Post poll showed Monday — tracking all others on the subject — Congress’ standing with the public is at an all-time low.

Obama does not always distinguish between the Democratic Senate and the Republican House in condemning Congressional inaction.

However, every poll, including the Post’s, shows that disapproval of Congressional Republicans is greater than of Democrats — 75 percent to 62 percent, according to the Post.

Similarly, a Pew poll last month showed that voters blamed Republicans more than Democrats for failures to achieve results by a 17-point margin.

By 53 percent to 33 percent, Pew found, voters think the GOP is “more extreme in its positions,” while by 51 percent to 25 percent, they believe Democrats are more willing to work with the other side.

Obama’s own polls began to show some upturn in mid-December, about two weeks after Obama traveled to Osawatomie, Kan., to identify with President Theodore Roosevelt’s progressivism and to assail Republicans for refusing “to ask the wealthiest Americans to pay the same tax rate as they did when Bill Clinton was president.”

The Washington Post/ABC poll showed that by 44 percent to 40 percent, voters believed he was better at handling the economy than Republicans in Congress; by 44 percent to 41 percent, at creating jobs; by 50 percent to 35 percent, at protecting the middle class; and even by 46 percent to 41 percent, in handling taxes. He’d been running behind in most of those categories until then.

Polls have pretty consistently shown that large majorities believe “the rich should pay more taxes” — by 68 percent to 28 percent in an October Time magazine survey.

Obama has experienced an upturn in his overall approval ratings since the lows of last fall. He was down to 38 percent in the Gallup daily tracking poll in October. He’s now up to 46 percent.

Generally speaking, presidents with approval ratings below 50 percent are in danger. President George H.W. Bush had 46 percent at this stage of his presidency and went down to defeat.

On the other hand, President Clinton also was at 46 percent in January 1996 and won re-election.

At the moment, Obama is running about even with Romney in national polls — but significantly behind his own 2008 performance among key demographic groups.

The RealClearPolitics average of polls shows Obama with a statistically insignificant lead of 46.5 percent to 45.3 percent over Romney.

A much-discussed paper by Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin of the liberal Center for American Progress indicated that demographic changes in key battleground states — chiefly growth in young voters and Latinos — would tilt the 2012 playing field toward Obama.

There’s no question that Obama should profit among Latinos from Romney’s hard-line immigration views — topped by his close alignment with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who wrote model legislation that served as the basis for measures passed into law in Arizona and Alabama that cracked down on illegal immigrants.

Still, the latest Gallup poll shows Obama’s approval rating among Latinos is only 56 percent, down from 67 percent in 2008 exit polls.

Obama won 55 percent of support among women in 2008, but he’s currently at 48 percent. Among whites, he’s down from 43 percent to 36 percent. Among voters aged 18-29, he’s down from 66 percent to 53 percent.

Obama got just 45 percent support among seniors in 2008; he’s now down to 40 percent approval. And, crucially, among independent voters, he’s dropped from 52 percent to 42 percent.

Independent voters clearly are dismayed that Obama has failed to fulfill his major campaign promise: to unite “red” and “blue” America to get the country’s problems solved.

Of those who think he’s accomplished little or nothing — presumably, mainly independents and Republicans — Obama gets the blame by a whopping 56 percent to 18 percent.

Obama is trying to convince the electorate that he saved America from plunging into a second Great Depression and is succeeding in triggering a recovery, albeit a slow one.

Improving unemployment numbers will help. Any renewed downturn — even if it’s the result of trouble in Europe — will hurt.

Obama will have the advantage of being able to husband his vast campaign resources if Romney’s opponents, especially former Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) and former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.), do not soon drop out of the race.

Romney seeks every opportunity to direct fire at Obama for trying to turn America into a “European welfare state,” but his opponents are equipping Obama with ammunition as they dwell on dealings by his former firm, Bain Capital.

The Democratic Party has also been assiduously adopting Romney’s GOP rivals’ argument that he’s a serial flip-flopper, and last week, former investment banker William D. Cohan unleashed a devastating critique that combined attack lines on Romney.

Cohan, author of two books on the misdeeds of Wall Street, charged that, under Romney, Bain made huge profits by offering high initial bids to buy firms at auction and eliminating competitors and then found ways to drastically reduce the offer during final negotiations.

“This win-at-any-cost approach makes me wonder how a President Romney would negotiate with Congress, or with China, or with anyone else — and what a promise, pledge or endorsement from him would actually mean,” Cohan wrote.

Even though Obama has run up the national debt and expanded government significantly, he is wrapping himself in distinctly American — not European — trappings, echoing Truman and Teddy Roosevelt.

And he’s got the money and the podium to paint Romney as a practitioner of the Wall Street practices that he says led to the Great Recession.

It’s going to be a brawl. I wouldn’t predict an outcome, but Obama has gotten off the mat.

"Generally speaking, presidents with approval ratings below 50 percent are in danger. President George H.W. Bush had 46 percent at this stage of his presidency and went down to defeat. On the other hand, President Clinton also was at 46 percent in January 1996 and won re-election."

Worth noting is that he won with well less than 50% of the vote due to Ross Perot. Will Ron Paul do the same thing to the same effect?

"I fear that just like George "Passionate Conservatism" Bush, Mitt suffers from what I call "patrician's guilt"

True, but I see him more like Geo H.W. Bush. He may not suffer from the guilt but has to fight off the perception.

I see him like the risk in a Supreme Court appointee. I think there is a 50% chance he will be a great President Newt I think carries higher risk that he won't stay consistent, bring the congress and the people with him.

The key will be to have him work the first 4 year with a GOOD Republican House and Senate.

If the new President doesn't bring and keep the people with him he will have no chance at bullying 60 votes in the senate for anything.

Tomorrow is the key to the race. Newt must win but if he does he may have a 2 man race and the advantage. If Romney wins, perhaps it is over.

Great analogy! HW had more experience in the public sector being head of CIA, VP, etc but the analogy is right on.

Unfortunately, as Doug pointed out in the past HW was a "great diplomat, but so so President".

So far Romney is exactly the same. Takes no risks, always the safe bet. Tries to please the most people he can. He is essentailly a moderate. And.... just doesn't really connect like a Reagan, JFK, or even a Clinton.

"I think there is a 50% chance he will be a great President"

A great President? Nothing to suggest that will happen and naturally that is why he wins tepid support from the right. I remember looking at my mother during a Reagan debate and saying to her, "I think this guy could be a GREAT President". She said I think so too. So far does anyone think that with Romney?

Of course he could turn out to be one if he wins. I wonder if anyone thought that of Lincoln when he took office.

I would argue that point a bit - true for the marital crap but not for the leadership points brought up by other members of his House leadership team - but today is Newt's day. Congrats. The momentum is Newt's The race is now Newt's to lose. Literally.

"I see him more like Geo H.W. Bush.

Only meant as an analogy coming into it, not a compliment. Both HW Bush and Romney start with the potential to be a great or at least solid President.

"I would proffer the probability that Romney's weenie response on his tax returns this past week typifies how he will respond to class warfare from Barak and the Demogogues."

Agree on the first part, it was lame although how his blind trust is taxed should be more a reflection on those in power than on him. On the second part, how he will respond, I don't know.

If any of these guys had a core principle or a backbone, answering the questions would be a lot simpler.

Everybody is focused on momentum, money, and manpower as the keys to victory inFlorida. But the three Ms won't matter much. It is a fourth M that will determinethe winner: message.

Don't count on Mitt Romney's money or organization to win the Florida primary afterhis devastating loss in South Carolina. And don't bet on Newt's momentum coming offa win to mean a whole lot. With two debates next week, it will be these rhetoricalmatchups that will determine the winner, not money or manpower. The GOP debates arethe functional equivalent of campaign finance reform!

Florida is a very different state from South Carolina. It has an altogetherdifferent mix of the three elements that comprise the GOP electorate. It is strongon national security and evangelical conservatives, but there are fewer economicconservatives in the mix. The Florida Panhandle is a lot like South Carolina, butits west coast is pure Midwestern and its east coast is composed largely of New Yorkand New Jersey refugees and Latinos - quite unlike South Carolina.

Newt Gingrich's social populism played well with evangelicals (and Romney's religionhurt him). His long-standing embrace of a strong military attracted lots of militaryactive and retired voters to give him a winning coalition.

But, in South Carolina, it is the free market economic conservatives who willpredominate.

To win, Romney must link Newt's attacks on Bain Capital and his tax rate to Obama'sclass warfare. He needs to play jujitsu to Newt's new found economic populism,making himself the poster boy for capitalism.

But, first, Romney needs to release his tax returns. There is likely nothing inthem so deadly as the question mark that hangs over the GOP contest. Where formerlyRomney was seen as the most likely to defeat Obama, now worries about what might bein his taxes overshadow his claim to electability.

If Newt hits Romney over taxes, he will be playing into his rival's hands andsetting up the class warfare argument for Mitt. For his part, Romney must explainthe inequity of double taxation to voters and should ask a simple question: Doesanyone in America voluntarily pay more than they legally owe in taxes? So whyshould I have done so? Then he needs to cite his millions in charitable donationsto explain what he does instead with his fortune.

For Newt's part, he will make a big mistake if he continues to pound on Romney overtaxes and Bain Capital. If he attributes his victory in South Carolina to theseattacks, he will be wrong. He won because of his positive message. He triumphedbecause he won the debate on Monday in grand style - slamming Paul for comparingOsama bin Laden to a Chinese dissident seeking asylum and calling Obama the"foodstamp president." His incredible insights, his unique way of looking atissues, and his intellect and sagacity brought him to victory in South Carolina, nothis attacks on either the media or Romney.

Santorum is still in this race. In a four way contest, if A and B attack oneanother, it is C and D who benefit. After a week of watching Mitt and Newt fight itout, Rick will look pretty good to many voters. His relatively strong finish inSouth Carolina - 17% isn't bad - after languishing in single digits in most pollswas due to his victory in Thursday's debate. So he is still on the map and thelikely beneficiary of the battle between Romney and Gingrich.

Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum each have a shot in Florida. But the Sunshine Statewon't determine the outcome. This battle still has a long way to go!

Newt Gingrich's sweeping victory in South Carolina throws the GOP Presidential contest into a useful uproar and poses a challenge for Mitt Romney, what's left of the Republican establishment, and not least for Mr. Gingrich himself. We'll see who rises to the occasion.

There's no denying the breadth of the former House speaker's triumph in the Palmetto State. He won among rank-and-file Republicans, tea partiers, men and women, all manner of conservatives, most income groups, and every age group save those under 30 (who went narrowly for Ron Paul over Mr. Gingrich).

Most strikingly, he routed Mr. Romney on what had been the former Massachusetts governor's greatest strength—electability. Some 45% of voters in the exit poll said defeating President Obama was the candidate trait that mattered most, and they went for Mr. Gingrich over Mr. Romney, 51% to 37%.

***

This reflects Mr. Gingrich's debate skills but perhaps more his willingness to promote conservative values. Since Reagan, Republicans have had a President or nominee who was typically either tongue-tied or timid in defending their policies and principles. With Mr. Obama preparing a re-election assault on those principles, GOP voters understandably want a tenacious advocate. Voters sense that, whatever his other failings, Mr. Gingrich can match Mr. Obama on the issues and won't go down without a fight.

Enlarge Image

Reuters.This is in contrast to Mr. Romney, who is cautious at his most tenacious but in the last week has seemed befuddled by questions he surely knew were coming. The demand to release his tax returns was inevitable, especially with Mr. Obama preparing to attack him as "Mr. 1%." Mr. Romney said Sunday he will release his 2010 tax return on Tuesday, but blowing that layup suggests either personal stubbornness or the lack of an adviser who can tell him when he's wrong.

The more serious flaw exposed by the tax debate is Mr. Romney's inability, or unwillingness, to make a larger and persuasive case for free-market economic growth and lower tax rates. Before last week, he seemed to believe he could dodge a class-war battle by not proposing a cut in tax rates. This was always implausible given Mr. Obama's campaign, but it is impossible now that he has disclosed that his own effective tax rate is 15%.

He faces a fundamental political choice: Duck and cover against the barrage of attacks on his 15% rate, the lower rate on "carried-interest" and any overseas income he might have, or go on offense by standing for something larger than his own career, such as a major tax reform to spur growth.

Mr. Romney and his advisers are making the mistake that John Kerry made against George W. Bush in 2004—believing that voters are so unhappy with the incumbent that all Mr. Romney has to do is present himself as a safe alternative. Mr. Romney seems to think it's enough to run on his biography as a businessman.

It won't be enough—unless the economy goes into another recession, which no one should want in any case. The Republican nominee will have to make a sustained and specific case that Mr. Obama's policies made the recovery weaker than it should have been (stimulus, health care), squandered resources on political boondoggles (Solyndra), and how and why GOP policies will do better. Mr. Romney's 59 economic proposals are fine but forgettable little ideas. He needs a big idea.

In the wake of his victory, Mr. Gingrich has his own challenge because he has always been at his worst when he is on top. The Georgian's main vulnerability isn't his failed marriages, as South Carolina proved. It is his penchant for over-the-top statements and sudden shifts of strategy or policy based on personal whim. In South Carolina, for example, he began to rise when he muted his misguided attacks on Bain Capital and focused on other issues.

Rick Santorum is candidly saying he plans to stay in the race, despite a distant third-place finish, mainly because he thinks Mr. Gingrich will blow himself up again. Mr. Romney and his surrogates will also try to portray the former speaker as unreliable and erratic, a Hindenburg sure to explode if he gets the nomination. If Mr. Gingrich handles the attacks with good humor and rational explanation, he'll reassure voters. If he erupts in anger or unleashes his inner de Gaulle, he'll play into the hands of his competitors.

Mr. Gingrich will also eventually need a more inclusive message than he is now offering. He made a stab at it in his South Carolina victory remarks by mentioning the strengths of his competitors. His bow to Mr. Paul's "sound money" platform was especially shrewd, but then he kept talking and talking in his familiar undisciplined fashion.

Mr. Gingrich's biggest problem is that more voters say they dislike than like him. In a recent Fox News poll, 56% said they had an unfavorable view of him, versus 27% favorable. That's a net unfavorable rating of minus-29%, compared with a plus-5% for Mr. Obama and plus-7% for Mr. Romney.

Mr. Gingrich is never going to be well loved, and voters may overlook that if they want a hard man for hard times. But he can't only practice the politics of contrast and win an election. Media-bashing may work when the questions seem unfair, but not when they are legitimate queries concerning his record at Freddie Mac or in Congress. He needs to practice the politics of addition with independents and nonconservatives.

***

As for the GOP establishment, such as it still is, Mr. Gingrich's re-emergence is likely to cause a panic attack. They don't believe he is electable. Our advice would be to relax and let the voters decide. If Mr. Romney can't marshal the wit and nerve to defeat the speaker, then he isn't likely to defeat Mr. Obama.

If GOP office-holders had a better candidate, they should have rallied behind one to get into the race, and they still could if the primary contest drags on without a clear winner. In any case the record of elected GOP politicians in picking nominees is hardly inspiring. Rank-and-file voters are likely to have a clearer sense of what the country needs. On to Florida.

The conventional wisdom is Newt can beat Obama in any debates. Suppose he is the nominee and Obama simply ducks the debates?

After all said and done at this time I prefer Romney as the "safer" candidate. Newt seems just too risky. On this count I agree with Coulter about Newt. I don't agree with her assertion he would absolutely lose against Obama. Yet the "insiders" must be doing studies of this and what they find is telling them independents don't/won't like Newt.

I guess the question is how will Newt do with the independents? My understanding is Romney is more popular with them.The conservatives seem convinced that all they need is a great voice in the darkness to convince the independents that their contrasting vision for America is the best choice and all the independents will have some sort of awakening and vote for a Republican. I am not so sure.

Surely if Wesbury is right and the stock market is up 20% this year (despite the debt +/- unemployment) independents might very well go for Brock. He is very intent on buying their votes ("it is all about the middle class").

Dick Morris had it right. It is not momentum of Newt or organization of Mitt now, it is the message from here on out, and it better get more focused.

Newt is a known commodity and has real high negatives, a bad combination that could cost R's the lead in the House and Senate takeover as well if things went badly. Best case is if the contest now between these two raises the eventual candidate to a level they wouldn't have attained otherwise.

Romney has not yet raised his game to deserve to win. South Carolina should clarify his thinking and help him to streamline his staff.

Mark Steyn wrote one of the strongest rips against Newt earlier. Here he take Romney over his knee and spanks him pretty badly:

The nature of this peculiar primary season — the reason it seems at odds with both the 2009–2010 political narrative and the seriousness of the times — was determined by Mitt Romney. Even if you don’t mind Romneycare, or the abortion flip-flop, or any of the rest, there’s a more basic problem: He’s not a natural campaigner, and on the stump he instinctively recoils from any personal connection with the voters. So, in compensation, he’s bought himself a bunch of A-list advisers and a lavish campaign. He is, as he likes to say, the only candidate with experience in the private sector. So he knows better than to throw his money away, right? But that’s just what he’s doing, in big ways and small.

Small: It’s a good idea to get that telegenic gal (daughter-in-law?) to stand behind him during the concession speech, but one of those expensive consultants ought to tell her not to look so bored and glassy-eyed as the stiff guy grinds through the same-old-same-old for the umpteenth time. To those watching on TV last night, she looked like we felt.

Big: Why is the stump speech so awful? “I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that’s the America millions of Americans believe in. That’s the America I love.” Mitt paid some guy to write this insipid pap. And he paid others to approve it. Not only is it bland and generic, it’s lethal to him in a way that it wouldn’t be to Gingrich or Perry or Bachmann or Paul because it plays to his caricature — as a synthetic, stage-managed hollow man of no fixed beliefs. And, when Ron Paul’s going on about “fiat money” and Newt’s brimming with specifics on everything (he was great on the pipeline last night), Mitt’s generalities are awfully condescending: The finely calibrated inoffensiveness is kind of offensive.

And what’s with the wind up? The “shining city on the hill”? That’s another guy’s line — a guy with whom you have had hitherto little connection other than your public repudiation of him back in the Nineties. Can’t any of his highly paid honchos write him a campaign slogan that’s his own and doesn’t sound in his mouth so cheesily anodyne, as if some guy ran a focus-group and this phrase came up with the lowest negatives?

And where, among all the dough he’s handing out, is the rapid-response team? Newt’s “spontaneous” indignation at John King was carefully crafted by Gingrich himself. By contrast, Mitt has a ton of consultants, and not one of them thought he needed a credible answer on Bain or taxes? For a guy running as a chief exec applying proven private-sector solutions, his campaign looks awfully like an unreformable government bureaucracy: big, bloated, overstaffed, burning money, slow to react, and all but impossible to change.

Mitt’s strategy for 2012 as for 2008 was to sit on his lead and run out the clock: Four years ago, that strategy died in New Hampshire; this time round it died one state later. Congratulations! Years ago, I was chit-chatting with Arthur Laurents, the writer of West Side Story and The Way We Were and much else, about some show that was in trouble on the road that he’d been called in to “fix.” “The trouble with a bad show,” he sighed, “is that you can make it better but you can never make it good.” The Romney candidacy is better than it was four years ago, but it’s not clear that it’s good. Mitt needs to get good real fast: A real speech, real plan, real responses, and real fire in the belly. Does he have it in him?

Newt said this after his SC win and I thought what a GREAT line and why can't the other guy come out with this kind of stuff:

Newt warned: “imagine how radical he would be in a second term.” I thought YES! Could we imagine Obama unleashed without having to pretend he is a moderate to get re elected?

Steyn says: "And where, among all the dough he’s handing out, is the rapid-response team?"

Another resounding YES! Remember Clinton's rapid response goons (obnoxiousness aside) hitting the MSM airwaves ALL day and night in response to every single remotely negative insinuation or accusation against the greatest spinner of the last century?

Doug writes:

"Dick Morris had it right. It is not momentum of Newt or organization of Mitt now, it is the message from here on out, and it better get more focused."

The question is the message going to win over the independents? Otherwise we have the 40 40 split right vs left who have already drawn their sides and dug in.

We had a little fun with cause and effect recently over on the Path Science thread, but it seems that all has gone wrong for Mitt Romney since securing the Jon Huntsman endorsement.

McCain on stage with Romney was also symbolic of all that went wrong in recent years for the party. Romney had better put some new people with him on stage and behind the scenes along with a better focus in his message SOON if he wants to lead the next 4-8 years.

Printer-Friendly VersionAll the male commentators and pundits got it wrong! Marianne Gingrich's sorrowful remembrances of her marriage to Newt have, indeed, arisen to bite the former Speaker's candidacy.

Both the Rasmussen and the Monmouth University Polls show Romney pulling ahead of Gingrich in Florida. After the former Speaker opened the primary with a nine point lead, he now trails Romney in both surveys by almost ten points. Monmouth has Romney ahead by 39-32 and Rasmussen has him up by eight at 39-31.

There are, of course, many reasons for this turnaround: Romney's attacks on Newt over Freddie Mac are scoring, especially because Gingrich was unable to give a good explanation of what he did for the money in the Monday debate. Newt's attacks on Romney focus on his flip flopping and Romney care, negatives that have already received quite an airing over TV in the debates and are old news. Either voters buy Romney's explanations or they don't, but a negative ad is not likely to do much one way or the other.

But the gender breakouts in the Monmouth Poll tell the story: Newt is ahead among men by 5 points but trails among women by 19!!! This 24 point gender gap can only be attributable to the Marianne Gingrich interview aired on Thursday night of last week. It had no immediate impact on the South Carolina vote two days later, nor was it in evidence in the post-South Carolina polls in Florida. But, after a round of breakfast table conversations and talks over lunch, women have reached a verdict: They are not voting for Gingrich.

Monmouth has Newt winning men by 38-33 and losing women by 45-26. This stunning turnaround mirrors poll findings at the start of the presidential race when Gingrich was winning twice as many men as women. But the former Speaker had closed the gender gap in subsequent polls only to have it open up wide now with his presidential ambitions squarely on the line.

There is, of course, a debate tonight and Newt often wins such contests. Much could change, but it looks bad for Gingrich among women in the Florida balloting.

Newt Gingrich is outpacing Mitt Romney among Republican voters nationwide, but he also is showing evidence of the vulnerabilities that could hurt the former House speaker in a general election, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

With the two rivals fighting it out in Florida after Mr. Gingrich's big South Carolina victory last week, the poll found Republicans nationwide favoring Mr. Gingrich 37% to 28% over Mr. Romney. GOP voters gave the former House speaker high marks for knowledge and experience, while they continued to harbor doubts about Mr. Romney's positions on the issues and his feel for average Americans.

In the final debate before Tuesday's GOP Primary in Florida, Mitt Romney showed a tougher side, taking on Newt Gingrich on immigration, government spending and entitlements. WSJ's Patrick O'Connor gives his impressions..The poll captures on a larger stage much of the drama playing out now in Florida, where Mr. Romney is scrambling to stop Mr. Gingrich's resurgence by jabbing at his weaknesses. The two engaged in verbal jousting at a Thursday evening debate in Jacksonville, where they criticized each other over the familiar topics of taxes and illegal immigration, as well as such new topics as investment portfolios and space exploration.

The struggle between the two has made the Florida race volatile; after trailing at the start of the week, Mr. Romney has moved to even or just ahead in more recent polls before next Tuesday's primary there.

Full ResultsView Document.Pulse of the PollSee results from The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

View Interactive..The Journal/NBC poll also puts a spotlight on the bigger issue of electability, registering a distinct uptick in positive sentiment both toward the economy and Mr. Obama. Greater confidence in the economy would strengthen the president's position leading up to the election.

Mr. Obama's approval rating nudged up to 48%, while 46% disapprove of the job he is doing, the first time the reading has moved into positive territory for the president since June. Mr. Obama was losing to a generic Republican candidate last month, but the new survey finds him beating an unnamed Republican 47% to 42%, his best margin in seven months.

Specifically, Mr. Obama tops both of the leading GOP candidates, but he is far stronger against Mr. Gingrich. When Americans were asked how they would vote today, the president surpasses Mr. Romney 49% to 43%. Against Mr. Gingrich, his margin swells to 55% to 37%.

"Republicans better bring their 'A' game to the election, because they cannot depend on a negative, crushing environment to win," said Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the poll along with Democratic pollster Peter Hart.

Poll Tracker WSJ's guide to the latest political polls

.On the IssuesRead where each Republican hopeful stands on major issues in the campaign.

View Interactive.More photos and interactive graphics .Mr. McInturff's message to GOP contenders: "You are not going to get elected simply by being the option to the president."

Mr. Hart had a similar assessment. "This is a great start for Obama with a lot of work to be done for the Republicans," he said. "The Republican primary is hurting them, and the improving economy is helping Obama."

The poll of 1,000 adults was conducted between Sunday and Tuesday, after Mr. Gingrich's surprisingly strong victory in South Carolina's primary. Mr. Gingrich led Mr. Romney by a wider margin in last month's Journal poll, 40% to 23%, though his fortunes have moved up and down in the intervening weeks.

Among the other two GOP contestants still in the race, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum garnered 18% support among GOP primary voters in the latest poll, while Texas Rep. Ron Paul got 12%. When winnowed down to just the two front-runners, 52% of Republicans picked Mr. Gingrich, compared with 39% for Mr. Romney.

The survey illuminates both where Mr. Gingrich has solidified his support and his broader weaknesses.

Mr. Gingrich owes his edge over Mr. Romney in large part to strong support in the South, where he leads the former Massachusetts governor by 24 percentage points. The former speaker notched outsize support among tea-party supporters and Republicans who see themselves as "very conservative."

.Meanwhile, though many analysts still see Mr. Romney as the likely nominee, the poll found him failing to convince key blocks of his own party. Among Republican primary voters, he was favored by 29% of women, 21% of tea-party backers and 17% of strongly conservative Republicans. His largest segments of support come from those calling themselves moderates and liberals. "Gingrich is just killing Romney in the core of the party," said Mr. Hart, who noted Mr. Romney continues to play "to a slim portion of the electorate."

At the same time, just over half of all Americans—and 57% of independents—gave Mr. Gingrich poor marks on the question of which candidate has "high personal standards." Mr. Romney came out markedly stronger on that front. Some 48% of all Americans say they have negative feelings toward Mr. Gingrich, compared with 36% for Mr. Romney and 39% for Mr. Obama.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich pushing debate moderator Wolf Blitzer to stay on track, Blitzer challenges Gingrich to address prior statements during the Republican debate in Florida. Courtesy of CNN..Mr. Gingrich's personal life flared as an issue last week when his second wife, Marianne, said in an interview that he asked for an open marriage before their divorce in 2000. More than one-third of adults said they viewed Mr. Gingrich more negatively after hearing stories about his marital problems.

Like many Republicans, Roy Hooper is a voter torn between the pluses and minuses of the two GOP front-runners.

The California high-school teacher, who was among those polled, said he wasn't thrilled with either man. He likes Mr. Gingrich, except "I extremely dislike his immigration policy," which supports leniency for illegal immigrants who have been in the U.S. for decades. He said he might "look more closely at Romney, but then with his health-care stuff looking like Obama, that's almost a deal-breaker for me."

Enlarge Image

Close.On broader questions of the national mood, 30% of those polled think the nation is heading in the right direction, up from 22% in December. Exactly half of Americans disapprove of Mr. Obama's handling of the economy, down from his all-time high of 59% in August.

MoreGingrich Blends Potential With Peril Santorum's Main Backer Plans to Keep on Funding .At the same time, Mr. Obama earns the approval of just 38% of whites for the job he is doing, compared with the 43% who voted for him in 2008. "So long as he remains below 40%, he remains in substantial peril," said Mr. McInturff.

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich sparring over housing and Gingrich's record of consulting at mortgage giant Freddie Mac at The Republican presidential debate in Florida. Courtesy of CNN..The poll found both unease about the current crop of candidates and optimism that the eventual nominee will be able to win in November. More than three-quarters of Republicans said they saw the GOP field as average or weak, 80% were optimistic the eventual nominee could beat Mr. Obama.

But the poll shows signs of Mr. Obama's original election coalition—African-Americans, Hispanics, young voters and college-educated whites—beginning to reassemble.

"We don't yet see his coalition coalescing," Mr. McInturff said. "But it is like a magnet, with the little threads moving toward the magnet."

Newt Gingrich's South Carolina bump is fading, and polls show Mitt Romney again leading in Florida. A Romney victory in the Sunshine State could sew this up.

It won't be because Mr. Romney has become a better or more effective candidate. Primaries exist to help with that process, to let contenders read signals from the political landscape, to adapt, become stronger. Successful politicians absorb the signals and change up. Not Mr. Romney. If politics were evolution, the governor would still be swimming in the primordial soup.

That much was clear this week. The first signal was Mr. Gingrich's resounding victory in South Carolina. If Mr. Romney were listening, he'd have understood that vote was as much against him as it was for Mr. Gingrich. It took but one punchy Gingrich debate performance to have voters abandoning the front-runner in droves.

South Carolina voters also clearly explained why. Exit polls showed that Mr. Romney's two (and only) messages—that he is the best suited to turn around the economy and to defeat Barack Obama—aren't working for the majority of voters. Mr. Gingrich beat Mr. Romney on both issues. The electorate explained that they first and foremost want a candidate willing to passionately promote conservative ideals.

Mr. Gingrich then followed his victory with a week in which he all but goaded his opponent into voicing some bigger principles. He kept up the "Massachusetts moderate" label. He again went populist and accused Mr. Romney of not working for all his money and profiting from big banks. He compared Mr. Romney to Charlie Crist. Among Florida conservatives, there is no greater diss.

Enlarge Image

CloseAFP/Getty Images

Candidate Romney.A candidate with even half the usual complement of political antennae would have seen this as a game-changing opportunity to win with conservatives. It was Mr. Romney's moment to turn his occasional defense of Bain Capital into a broad rallying cry for capitalism. Florida posed the perfect backdrop to elevate his causes of free-market housing and energy. It was a chance to unveil a simpler and bolder economic reform plan.

Mr. Romney had some strong moments in Thursday's debate, but on the Florida stump he's mostly been plodding on. As in Iowa, as in New Hampshire, as in South Carolina, he's still criticizing Mr. Gingrich. He's still running on his biography. He's still sending the media press releases announcing the latest Miami Dade politician to pronounce him most electable against Barack Obama.

Which gets to the other story of this week: the president's State of the Mitt Address. Mr. Gingrich might have some Republicans spooked, but Democrats are still hoping for the Massachusetts governor. They, too, have noticed that Mr. Romney is ducking the class-warfare debate, and that not even the Gingrich threat has moved him to engage. They take that as an invitation to make it the central theme of the Obama re-elect. The president's Tuesday speech was a direct assault on Mr. Romney's wealth and tax breaks for "the rich."

That challenge, coming on the back of Mr. Romney's tax release, was all the more reason for him to change the narrative by seizing on a big idea like comprehensive tax reform. He could have underlined how the tax code that Mr. Obama wants to further contort only undermines growth and leaves average Americans paying a higher effective rate than does Mr. Romney. Instead, he complained that Mr. Gingrich's tax simplification plan would let off rich guys.

Mr. Romney has his unscripted, inspired moments. Late in South Carolina, a feisty Mr. Romney chastised a heckler—who was slamming him for being the 1%—for seeking to "divide the nation . . . as our President is doing," and then riffed on America's great economic model. Romney strategist Eric Fehrnstrom boasted it was "Mitt Romney at his best." He was right. And it lasted all of 30 seconds. A few days later Mr. Romney was back to borrowing the heckler's language, telling Floridians "the 1% is doing fine. I want to help the 99%."

The Romney camp lives in terror of deviating from the months-old script. It did, and will, defend RomneyCare. It did, and will, stick with a 59-point economic plan. It did, and will, promote only the "middle class." Did. Will. No flip-flops here, folks. Move along.

Yet it is precisely Mr. Romney's past flips that now require him to adjust, to convince conservative voters that the convictions he today claims are real and strong. Mr. Romney likes to repeat that he is a free-market conservative. What voter is going to blame him for proving it by putting out a roaring tax reform? That's not a flip-flop. That's progress.

Mr. Romney isn't beating Mr. Gingrich in Florida on the arguments. He's barely eking ahead of a man whose own history and temperament are his hurdles to victory. Mr. Obama won't have that problem. If a Nominee Romney thinks he can win the White House with the sort of uninspired performance he put in this week, he's got a long 2012 ahead of him.

Regarding the WSJ editorial of Mitt muffing it, I will take (WSJ editorial page editor) Paul Gigot over either one of these guys any day. Romney could read that column or this forum daily and save a lot of money on his overpriced Washington establishment advisers.

I did not see the debate again, but read lots of reactions. Sounds like Santorum was strong and Mitt did well except for getting nailed to the wall on Romneycare by Santorum. My read is that he bent his politics to fit the wishes of the most liberal state, is happy to take a more conservative line now but stuck with needing to reconcile the unreconcilable and just wishing the question would go away. There is a difference between the state government imposing healthcare and the feds doing it, but not much. WSJ and Crafty are right that he needs to drop the rich guilt and focus on selling economic freedom and policies that move us boldly in that direction.

Rick S. looking good probably hurts Newt whose best shot is a one on one Republican matchup against Romney.

I didn't catch what the first lady fluff question was. It seems to me that line of thought hurts Newt. Callista is sharp but both Marianne and Callista were 'home wreckers' before becoming Mrs. G. I can forgive them but I don't admire them.

I have a burnout on this race because I can't fix either one of them. More attention should start getting directed to influencing the agenda that will come out of the next congress. It was Pelosi's gang that wrote 'Obamacare'. Maybe it can be my conservative congressman and his allies who will write the tax and spending reform of 2013, if they win majoorities, the Presidency and can get their own thinking straight.

Santorum should play up his double digit loss in PA 2006 as a positive and a marker in time. He offered voters a clear choice. They went the other way. This is what happened. 6, 7 or 8 trillion dollars of new debt later and millions of jobs lost and they get another shot at a clear choice. This time they know more about where the other path (leftism) leads.

I thought Santorum was far stronger last night than the chattering class seems to be giving him credit for. His answer to the Latin America question was outstanding, both on content and in terms of the politics of the state of FL. The Cuban vote there will recognize a depth of familiarity with the issues that cannot be faked. His pithy rejoinder to Ron Paul's attempted criticism was withering.

He took the lead in steering the moderator and Newt-Mitt away from the catfight the two of them were having (with Romney spanking Newt at a couple of moments-- how utterly feeble of Newt to try the "you owned stock in FMs" only to be humilated by the "Yeah, you dumb fk, it was in a blind trust" retort.) Newt had the wit to jump on board, and slightly pick up lost ground when Mitt kept it going a bit longer, but really the leader in this was Santorum.

I thought Santorum really soared at several moments last night. I still think him out of the running (and a big loser against Baraq), but then, as is recorded here, I thought is candidacy an irrelevancy many months ago even though I liked him, and he has proven far more formidable than I would have given him credit for.

When Bain Capital sought to raise money in 1989 for a fast-growing office-supply company named Staples, Mitt Romney, Bain’s founder, called upon a trusted business partner: Goldman Sachs, whose bankers led the company’s initial public offering.

When Mr. Romney became governor of Massachusetts, his blind trust gave Goldman much of his wealth to manage, a fortune now estimated to be as much as $250 million.

And as Mr. Romney mounts his second bid for the presidency, Goldman is coming through again: Its employees have contributed at least $367,000 to his campaign, making the firm Mr. Romney’s largest single source of campaign money through the end of September.

No other company is so closely intertwined with Mr. Romney’s public and private lives except Bain itself. And in recent days, Mr. Romney’s ties to Goldman Sachs have lashed another lightning rod to a campaign already fending off withering attacks on his career as a buyout specialist, thrusting the privileges of the Wall Street elite to the forefront of the Republican nominating battle.

Newt Gingrich, whose allies have spent millions of dollars on advertisements painting Mr. Romney as a heartless “vulture capitalist,” seized on Mr. Romney’s Goldman ties at Thursday’s Republican debate in Florida, suggesting that he had profited through Goldman on banks that had foreclosed on Floridians. And as the fight over regulation of financial firms spills onto the campaign trail, Mr. Romney’s support for the industry — he has called for repeal of the Dodd-Frank legislation tightening oversight of Wall Street — may draw more fire.

Mr. Romney’s positions and pedigree have helped draw to his side major donors in the financial world. The securities and investment industry has given more money to Mr. Romney than any other industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and some of its leading figures have donated millions of dollars to Restore Our Future, the “super PAC” bolstering Mr. Romney’s campaign. Goldman employees are also the biggest source of donations to Free & Strong America PAC, a group Mr. Romney founded but no longer controls.

But Mr. Romney’s personal finances are particularly entwined with Goldman.

His federal financial disclosure statements show Mr. Romney and his wife, their blind trusts and their family foundation to be prodigious consumers of the bank’s services. In 2011, Mr. Romney’s blind trust and the couple’s retirement accounts held as much as $36.7 million in at least two dozen Goldman investment vehicles, earning as much as $3 million a year in income. Mrs. Romney’s trust had at least $10.2 million in Goldman funds — possibly much more — earning as much as $6.2 million.

Tax returns released by the campaign this week also highlighted some of the privileges Mr. Romney enjoyed as a friend of Goldman: In May 1999, a few months after he left Bain to run the Salt Lake City Olympics, Goldman allowed Mr. Romney to buy at least 7,000 Goldman shares during the firm’s lucrative initial public offering — a generous allotment even among Goldman clients, according to people with knowledge of the deal. When Mr. Romney’s trusts sold the shares in December 2010, a few months before he formed his presidential exploratory committee for the 2012 race, they returned a profit of $750,000.

A spokeswoman for Goldman declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for Mr. Romney.

Investing with Goldman was not without risks: Like other Goldman clients, the Romneys invested money in a family of funds known as Whitehall, which placed highly leveraged bets on office buildings, casinos and hotels. Some Whitehall deals collapsed during the financial crisis, saddling Mr. Romney and its other investors with big losses.

And some of the attacks on Mr. Romney have overreached. While Mr. Gingrich charged on Thursday that his rival did business with a firm that “was explicitly foreclosing on Floridians,” that is not accurate: The family’s holdings include a Goldman fund that, like other investment funds, has invested partly in mortgage-backed securities. Goldman sold its mortgage servicing arm, Litton Loan Servicing, last year.

But other elements of Mr. Romney’s personal and business ties to Goldman may prove more controversial. Bain’s mid-1990s acquisition of Dade Behring, a medical device maker with factories in Florida, has become a totem of the economic upheaval that private equity can inflict. Goldman invested in the acquisition, which brought the bank $120 million and Bain $242 million — but led to the layoffs of hundreds of workers in Miami. Democrats hammered Mr. Romney over the deal this week.

When Mr. Romney was building Bain into one of the world’s premier private equity firms, Goldman’s bankers clamored for Bain business, and won assignments advising or financing an array of Bain deals, including Bain’s 1997 $800 million buyout of Sealy, the nation’s largest mattress company, which it later sold.

As Mr. Romney amassed his fortune, Goldman also offered up the services of an elite Boston-based team in the bank’s private wealth management unit. The relationship gave him access to Goldman’s exclusive investment funds, including private equity vehicles known as Goldman Sachs Capital Partners.

Mr. Romney is far from Goldman’s largest client — some investors have billions of dollars at the firm — but his political connections and founding role at Bain have elevated his importance there. His Goldman investments are handled by Jim Donovan, who has built one of the largest-producing businesses in Goldman’s private wealth management unit, managing several billion dollars for the firm’s individual clients.

Goldman gave Mr. Romney’s trusts access to the bank’s own exclusive investment funds and helped him execute an aggressive and complex tax-deferral strategy known as an “exchange fund” in 2002. (Since 2003, most of Mr. Romney’s money has been held in blind trusts, meaning that he no longer makes many of his own investment decisions.) According to tax returns released this week, the family’s three principal trusts earned more than $9 million from various Goldman Sachs investment vehicles in 2010.

If you’re making money on the Wall Street scale — which is nothing like your boring, middle-management in the Fortune 500, Hamptons-and-Mercedes, barely–a–1 percenter type money — then you can buy basically anything. When real-estate investor Robert Rosania put part of his storied champagne collection up for sale in 2008, the auction was predicted to fetch $5 million — couch-cushion change to Rosania, who had not yet reached his 40th birthday, making him a good deal younger than many of the vintages in his cellar. (Known in the wine world as Big Boy, he brandishes a special saber designed for decapitating head-clutchingly expensive bottles of champagne. Bespoke vintage-champagne cutlery: That’s how you know you’re rich.) Not far from Zuccotti Park, where Occupy Wall Street was fragrantly encamped, I noticed a young man wandering into a store to buy a pack of cigarettes on a bright Saturday morning, wearing blue jeans, a T-shirt, and a $237,000 Vacheron-Constantin watch. In a world of $600,000 cars (consult your local Maybach dealer) and $4,300-a-night whores (consult Eliot Spitzer), it’s no big deal to buy a president, which is precisely what Wall Street did in 2008 when, led by investment giant Goldman Sachs, it closed the deal on Barack Obama.

For a few measly millions, Wall Street not only bought itself a president, but got the start-up firm of B. H. Obama & Co. LLC to throw a cabinet into the deal, too — on remarkably generous terms. President Obama, for a guy prone to delivering prim and smug little homilies denouncing greed, greed, greed — the only of the seven deadly sins that truly offends Democrats (though Mrs. Obama has done some desultory work on gluttony) — is strangely comfortable among the Gordon Gekkos of this world. Shall we have a partial roll call? Beat the drum slowly and call out the names: With unemployment still topping 9 percent, the catastatic world economy teetering on the brink of another, even larger financial catastrophe, and trillion-dollar U.S. deficits as far as the green-shaded eye can see, let’s hear it for Obama’s first National Economic Council director, Lawrence Summers (of hedge-fund giant D. E. Shaw and venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz), who has had some nice paydays courtesy of Lehman Bros., JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup. Let’s hear it for Citigroup’s Michael Froman, deputy assistant to the president and deputy national-security adviser for international economic affairs, for Hartford Financial’s Neal Wolin, deputy Treasury secretary, for JPMorgan’s William Daley, Obama’s chief of staff, and for his predecessor, Rahm Emanuel of Wasserstein Perella. Let’s hear it for Fannie Mae’s Tom Donilon, national-security adviser. (No, seriously: One of the luminous interstellar geniuses who brought Fannie Mae to its current aphotic state of affairs, upside down to the tune of trillions of dollars, is running national security, and the former director of the White House Military Office, Louis Caldera, was on the board of IndyMac when it finally went toes up — sleep tight, America!) And, lest we forget, let’s have three big, sloppy cheers for economic-transition team leaders Robert Rubin (Goldman Sachs, Citigroup) and folksy tax enthusiast/ghoulish billionaire vulture Warren Buffett.

That’s a pretty fantastic lineup, from Wall Street’s point of view, but the real bonus turned out to be Treasury secretary Tim Geithner, who came up through the ranks as part of the bipartisan Robert Rubin–Hank Paulson–Citigroup–Goldman Sachs cabal. Geithner, a government-and-academe man from way back, never really worked on Wall Street, though he once was offered a gig as CEO of Citigroup, which apparently thought he did an outstanding job as chairman of the New York Fed, where one of his main tasks was regulating Citigroup — until it collapsed into the yawning suckhole of its own cavernous ineptitude, at which point Geithner’s main job became shoveling tens of billions of federal dollars into Citigroup, in an ingeniously structured investment that allowed the government to buy a 27 percent share in the bank, for which it paid more than the entire market value of the bank. If you can’t figure out why you’d pay 100-plus percent of a bank’s value for 27 percent of it, then you just don’t understand high finance or high politics.

It looks like it's all over in Florida. Even before the voting has begun in Tuesday's primary, polls show Mitt Romney with a comfortable lead. If the former Massachusetts governor wins by a respectable margin, it would be completely understandable to take it as confirmation that he needs to stick with his campaign strategy.

It would also be a colossal mistake.

At least since South Carolina, Mr. Romney has been laboring under the assumption that his most serious challenge is to defeat Newt Gingrich. It's not. Mr. Gingrich's viability after months of also-ran status owes itself almost entirely to Mr. Romney's glaring weaknesses. The governor's challenge is not merely to best Mr. Gingrich but to do so in a way that addresses those weaknesses.

Enlarge Image

CloseAFP/Getty Images

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.For those who have dealt with him, Mr. Gingrich presents an oddly captivating figure. Where Ronald Reagan was the Teflon president for the way that attacks never seemed to stick to him, Mr. Gingrich is like the blob from some horror movie, absorbing everything shot at him without stopping. That's why Nancy Pelosi's claim that she has something that would sink him is laughable: At this stage, is there really anything left that could discredit this man?

GOP voters know all about Mr. Gingrich's dirty laundry. What attracts them, especially in the debates, is that they see him taking the fight to all the people they oppose: liberal Democrats, the liberal press, and squishy Republicans afraid to challenge either with conservative ideas.

On the other hand, Mr. Gingrich has attacked Mr. Romney from the left on his earnings at Bain Capital and disparaged the man's character. With his usual reach for superlatives, the former speaker of the House accuses Mr. Romney of giving "the most blatantly dishonest answers" not just in this race but "in any presidential race in my lifetime."

Related Video Columnist Dan Henninger on the Florida primary and Romney-Gingrich dogfight...Mr. Gingrich is neither the front-runner nor the likely nominee. But he may be the candidate who ensures that the present nastiness continues right up and through the convention. And while Mr. Romney may win Florida, dusting off Bob Dole to launch an assault on Mr. Gingrich's character will do nothing to kill the larger threat from the Newt insurgency.

That's because at bottom the Newt insurgency is fueled by the sense that Mr. Romney's tepid policy agenda reflects no fixed beliefs. Many who support Mr. Gingrich will concede he is not their ideal candidate. In fact, it's telling that Mr. Romney's GOP rivals are defined as non-Romneys, each standing for something lacking in the front-runner.

The most constructive way for Mr. Romney to kill off his rivals while bringing the party together is simple: Steal their best ideas. Mr. Gingrich has done precisely that with Ron Paul by calling for a commission to study the gold standard. Mr. Romney could easily do the same, echoing Mr. Paul's call for an honest dollar or adopting Mr. Gingrich's flat tax.

He might steal a lesson in style from Rick Santorum. With little money and a shoestring organization, Mr. Santorum has managed to articulate the core arguments of the conservative agenda: why we need to address Iran, why we need to help Americans keep more of what they earn and, most of all, why the words of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution matter still. In the last debate he proved you can be tough without being personal, skillfully demolishing all the governor's pat answers about RomneyCare.

Ronald Reagan always understood that ideas were more potent than invective. Nor was he above looking to others for those ideas. The across-the-board tax cut he made the heart of his 1980 campaign was largely the work of a then-obscure congressman from upstate New York named Jack Kemp.

There's no reason Mr. Romney could not likewise work with the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan, on a complete rewrite of our debilitating tax code—which would give all Republican Party candidates something substantive to rally around in this fall's campaign against President Obama and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill.

In the end, the arguments for Mr. Romney come down to this: He has executive experience in both business and government, he's got the most money and the best organization, and he's electable. They are good points. Still, they add up to one argument by résumé and two from process.

Those of us who believed that a primary fight would toughen Mr. Romney up have little to show for it. Far from sharpening his proposals to reach out to a GOP electorate hungry for a candidate with a bold conservative agenda, Mr. Romney has limited his new toughness to increasingly negative attacks on Mr. Gingrich's character. It's beginning to make what we all assumed was a weakness look much more like arrogance.

By JAMES TARANTO (Best of the tube tonight: We'll appear on Fox Business's "Lou Dobbs Tonight." The program starts at 7 p.m. ET, with our panel around 7:40.)

In a Forbes.com column, our friend Richard Miniter aims to debunk the common view that Mitt Romney is "electable." This column will serve as a rebunking.

Let's begin by saying we largely agree with Miniter's ideological critique of the Republican front-runner. Indeed Romney "is not a tax-cutter" and "is not a Reaganite reformer," and we'd prefer if he were. We are unpersuaded by the connection Miniter draws between these shortcomings and the question of electability, but we'll get to that after we go through some other points:

Romney is not an election winner. He lost in his U.S. Senate race to unseat Ted Kennedy and decided not to seek re-election as governor, largely because he would have almost certainly lost. And he lost to John McCain in 2008, which is not exactly playing the varsity.Miniter also observes that "so far, Mitt Romney has only won in states where he owns summer houses, like New Hampshire" and that Romney "has never won a majority . . . of Republican primary or caucus voters."

That last observation has little bearing on the electability question, since it's true as well of Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and most candidates for open nominations at this early stage of the primary process. (As for 2008, Romney dropped out in the first week of February.) It is a certainty that if Romney wins the nomination, he will have won a majority in some statewide contests. As to his only having won states in which he has vacation homes, that's a lot of states, isn't it?

Getty Images

Almost everyone loses a few..Romney would not be the first man elected to the White House with prior election losses. In fact, he would be the eighth in a row. Barack Obama ran unsuccessfully for a House seat in 2000, as did George W. Bush in 1978. Bill Clinton lost a 1974 House race and his first re-election as governor of Arkansas, in 1980. (He made a comeback two years later.) George H.W. Bush lost a Senate race in 1970 and was an unsuccessful candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 1980. Ronald Reagan failed to win the Republican nomination in both 1968 and 1976. Jimmy Carter lost his first bid to become Georgia's governor, in 1966. Richard Nixon was defeated for the presidency in 1960 and the California governorship in 1962. Lyndon Johnson lost a special election for the Senate in 1941.

The last man to be elected president without a prior election defeat was John F. Kennedy--and the candidate he beat, Nixon, also was undefeated up to that point.

There is also a tension between the complaints that Romney isn't conservative enough and that he has a poor electoral record in Massachusetts, a very liberal and Democratic state. Surely many Bay Staters voted against him in 1994 and 2002, and would have in 2006, because by their lights he was too conservative.

Romney is not a strong debater. Certainly he improved greatly in the most recent Florida debate, but he still trails Santorum and Gingrich in his ability to woo a crowd. While debates, by themselves, do not determine elections, they move marginal voters one way or the other. A strong debate performance will be essential to defeating Obama for the Republican nominee.We're on record expressing skepticism about that last assertion, but that second sentence gives away almost the whole game anyway. Gingrich's supposed brilliance at debating has been the central argument for nominating him. But in the last debate, last Thursday, the ex-governor dominated the ex-speaker, demonstrating either that Gingrich is overrated, that Romney is underrated or has become much better, or both. There is, to be sure, a case to be made on this point for Santorum, who outshined Romney last week in an exchange on health care.

Romney's racial problem. If he wins the nomination, Romney will be running against the first black President of the United States while he comes from a church that did not see black people as eligible members until 1978. Since then, the Church of [Jesus Christ of] Latter-Day Saints has done remarkable outreach and can claim vast numbers of members in all races and all parts of the globe. And, of course, Romney is not a racist.Nevertheless, this issue will be brought up by Obama's surrogates in 2012 campaign. It is not fair and not right, but it is reality. The views of Mormons toward blacks, Jewish ancestors and Jesus Christ will be presented as strange and revolting by too many voices in the major media. Religious bigotry exists, even among the very educated and influential. How that issue is handled will sway moderates, independents and suburban women--all of whom the GOP needs to prevail in November.It's a given that Obama's surrogates and supporters, defending a black president with a lousy record, will level ugly race-based accusations against whoever is the Republican nominee. It's already happening with Gingrich. Our guess is that this tactic will put off more swing voters than it will attract, and even more so if the focus of the attacks is the GOP nominee's religious affiliation--another form of bigotry--as Miniter speculates it would be in Romney's case.

Miniter also argues that Romney's defense of his record at Bain Capital "may not be as effective in the general election as in a Republican primary." Perhaps so, and as we've argued, he has reason to be grateful to Gingrich for helping prepare him for the fall campaign.

Finally, Miniter observes that "GOP establishment support actually hurts Romney" among "many ordinary voters," who "want an electable reformer, not a cautious moderate." This seems to argue against Romney's inevitability as the nominee more than his electability if nominated. Which brings us to Miniter's case for why Romney would be more electable if he were more conservative:

Romney's nomination presents the real risk of a third-party presidential challenger, a candidate who hopes to hoover up libertarians, Tea Partiers and conservatives disaffected with Romney. Sure, that candidate would win, at most, 2% of the vote--but that percentage would be enough to swing the election to Obama.This is not an implausible scenario. In fact, it's roughly analogous to what happened to Al Gore in 2000. But it is far from a likely one. It presupposes that a significant number of voters on the right will be more disaffected with Romney than they are with Obama, that a third-party candidate will emerge to take their votes, and that the Romney-Obama race will be close enough for this group of voters to swing the election. But even if all this comes to pass, Romney will be shown to have been only as unelectable as Al Gore was in 2000--which is to say, so electable that he came within a hair's breadth of being elected.

The central argument for Romney's electability is that his rivals for the GOP nomination have qualities that are far more likely to put off independent voters: that Gingrich and Santorum, each in their own way, are too harsh, and Gingrich also too zany, to win as many independent voters as the blander Romney could do. We have yet to see an argument for why this is wrong.

We do agree with Miniter's concluding advice to Romney: to "present some dramatic reform plans, starting with income-tax cuts and ending pointless government agencies." Some readers may wonder how that squares with our advice to the GOP yesterday to "run a campaign centered on competence, not ideology."

The answer is in the word "centered." When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, all the left-wing ideology was there, but his campaign centered on what has come to be known derisively as "that hopey-changey stuff," vague promises of unity and better government.

Romney's campaign has substantive deficiencies that augur ill for a Romney presidency. Gingrich's and Santorum's have defects in tone that probably can't be overcome, and that would make them easier for Obama to beat (assuming the president himself isn't unelectable. as Sean Trende argues he is). That's why Romney, for all his shortcomings, is the most electable Republican candidate.

This bodes well for Romney. Despite the MSLSD and WasserwomanSchultz's claim that Brock is the great and formidable campaigner he is, it appears the independents are not buying into his story line. So far Romney's caution may be paying off. He is too moderate for me but then again I'll vote for any Republican (except maybe Paul) over Obama (on second thought, I would probably not vote). It IS the independents who count. A few Republican voting Latinos thrown in won't hurt Romney get it.

Earlier he said clumsily, I like to be able to fire my heath care provider. I think the correct word was 'choose'.

Yesterday he said he is not focused on the poor or on the rich.

What is missing is the full explanation of how things work. It is an integrative economy. We shrink the ranks of the poor with 'income mobility'. We may not worry abut the rich but we should value the essential role they play and grow their ranks and strength with ... 'income mobility'.

Some Americans are pulling the wagon; some are riding in it As CCP has pointed out, that ratio has become roughly 50-50. The best way to support the needs of the truly needy is to give our best pullers reason to pull even harder while enticing those riding who should be pulling to do so.

Barack Obama's poorly received State of the Union speech deserves a second look. Conventional wisdom pronounced the SOTU a relatively weak Obama effort. It was. Diffuse, filled with the usual enemies, it pulled together various back-filed policy ideas into a proposal he called, with a straight face, "An Economy Built to Last."

Bemused election-year observers remarked that both ObamaCare and the nation's entitlement bomb passed unmentioned. In his reply, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels noted that we are not going to be able to outrun the simple math on entitlement spending. That's true. We can't. But Mr. Obama just may for the next 10 months.

How? By exploiting political vulnerabilities in the Republicans' case against his presidency. Republicans think it's all about the bad economy. It is. But Barack Obama is going to do something his opposition wouldn't think possible. He's going to take ownership of the American economy. Not the real one, but the one he's just made up, "the economy built to last." It won't last long, but long enough.

In the days after his Washington lecture, Mr. Obama took a shorter version of his SOTU speech on the road—to Colorado, Michigan, Iowa, Nevada and Arizona, states he needs in November. On the White House website, you can see him give this campaign tuneup speech at the new, $5 billion Intel chip-fabrication plant in Chandler, Ariz. It's worth watching and pondering. You'd think the best and the brightest would be beyond Mr. Obama's crude populist pitch. You of course would be wrong.

About 6,000 Intel employees—young, well-educated technology sophisticates—applauded and cheered Mr. Obama from start to finish. Even when he ripped into those awful American companies with factories overseas, such as their own employer. "An America where we build stuff and make stuff and sell stuff all over the world." (Applause.)

A speech that flopped among Washington's policy sophisticates is soaring out in the country. Republicans had better figure out why.

Reading through the White House's text of "An Economy Built to Last," any half-awake citizen will notice the words that fail to appear: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, entitlements and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The deficit is in the document's last paragraph, three sentences long.

Gilda Radner's Emily Litella famously said "Never mind," and you would too if you had to run on this economy. Thus, the Obama solution: Run against the economy. This effectively means Mr. Obama is running against himself, but . . . never mind.

Related Video He will marginalize his opponents as the bloodless Numbers People...Mr. Obama may not know much about the private economy, but he knows a lot about the uses of human anxiety. Proposing to replace his own bad economy with a virtual substitute "built to last" allows Mr. Obama to place himself outside the White House and on the street making common cause with the genuine economic anxieties of the American people. It also lets this president put in motion what he thinks he knows best—empathy. In "The Audacity of Hope" he put empathy "at the heart of my moral code." Practice makes perfect.

It is beyond audacious. How can a president simultaneously hammer real job creation with the Keystone XL pipeline decision, then go into the country and claim kinship with the anxieties of the jobless? No problem. Just do it.

It could work. If we know nothing else about Barack Obama it is that he can play "hope" like a Stradivarius. The version of "An Economy Built to Last" that he performed at Intel is his concerto for re-election.

The Obama-Axelrod-Plouffe team knows that the Republicans instinctively will respond by quoting, endlessly, the poor economic data of the Obama years. They plan to turn this reality on its head as well. In a down economy, Barack Obama is going to position his GOP critics as economic determinists. The bloodless Numbers People. The tea party, by its own admission, obsesses over "the deficit"—numbers. Mr. Obama's likely opponent has self-defined as a competent manager, a numbers guy. That false Obama demagoguery about rules-free GOP Darwinians is just one piece of this unflattering portrait.

In Arizona he said, "An economy built to last also means we've got to renew American values: fair play, shared responsibility." Wild applause. For those who think they have facts on their side, it will be maddening and enraging to watch other Obama audiences across the country cheer and applaud "An Economy Built to Last." Get used to it.

The GOP is appealing, as its candidates so often do, to the American brain. Barack Obama is happy to be left by himself, going for their hearts. If he wins, the Republican will wail at the unfairness, irrationality and illogic of what beat them.

Rick Santorum, in his Tuesday night also-ran speech to what looked like a roomful of about 35 people at a Nevada Days Inn, spoke of couples "sitting around a kitchen table" to figure out what comes next. Whatever his campaign's shortcomings, Mr. Santorum is the one man running who understands the Obama strategy to marginalize Republicans. At some point after the inevitable end of the nomination campaign, Mitt Romney should ask Rick Santorum to sit down with him to discuss the inner melodies of life in America these days. Barack Obama is the maestro of this music, and without it, you can't win a presidency.

First, there are 40-45% of the people in the US who WILL vote for him no matter what. They will never cross the Democrat line.

"The GOP is appealing, as its candidates so often do, to the American brain. Barack Obama is happy to be left by himself, going for their hearts."

Clinton proved the independent block of the public can turn on a dime. And it is that group (independents) that will vote based on how good they feel THAT day. If the economy is bad then Obama can pull on all the heart strings he wants. He will not win. Then again if the economy is or appears to be getting better, it might work. If the market is going up and the stated though corrupted unempolyment number is coming down than that group will stop and think, "well this guy isn't doing that bad" and Mitt just do anything to excite me.

"any half-awake citizen will notice the words that fail to appear: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, entitlements and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act."

Apparantly the Democrats have decided NOT to touch those "rails" of politics. It is obvious they are gaming the Republicans to do so. I guess they have polling data to show they can get a bit more than 45% by letting the Repubs commit themselves and then demogague them.

"He's going to take ownership of the American economy. Not the real one, but the one he's just made up, "the economy built to last."

""An Economy Built to Last,"

Is this the new catch phrase analogy to hope and change?

OK let Mitt begin to study this. IF one wants an entitlement economy which IS what he is building on, it won' t last.If one wants an economy that will last, like what we have had for 200 hundred years then don't vote for the big government guy. Lest we want to look like Europe with some of us paying for the bankrupt Californias, NJs, etc.

OBAMA ELIGIBILITY COURT CASE…BLOW BY BLOWBy Craig Andresen on January 26, 2012 at 9:25 am Editor’s Note:The hearing was before Judge Michael Malihi of the Georgia state Office of State Administrative Hearings. David Farrar, Leah Lax, Thomas Malaren and Laurie Roth, represented by California attorney Orly Taitz, who has handled numerous cases concerning Obama’s eligibility; David Weldon represented by attorney Van R. Irion of Liberty Legal Foundation; and Carl Swensson and Kevin Richard Powell, represented by J. Mark Hatfield. This hearing took place in the courthouse lacated at: 230 Peachtree Street N.W., Suite 850 Atlanta, Georgia 30303 on January 26th 2012 at 9am EST.Docket Number: OSAH-SECSTATE-CE1215136-60-MALIHIGiven the testimony from today’s court case in Georgia, Obama has a lot of explaining to do. His attorney, Jablonski, was a NO SHOW as of course, was Obama.The following is a nutshell account of the proceedings.Promptly at 9am EST, all attorneys involved in the Obama Georgia eligibility case were called to the Judge’s chambers. This was indeed a very interesting beginning to this long awaited and important case.The case revolved around the Natural Born clause of the Constitution and whether or not Obama qualifies under it to serve. More to the point, if found ineligible, Obama’s name would not appear on the 2012 ballot in Georgia.With the small courtroom crowded, several in attendance could be seen fanning themselves with pamphlets as they waited for the return of the attorneys and the appearance of the judge.Obama himself, who had been subpoenaed to appear, of course was nowhere near Georgia. Instead, Obama was on a campaign swing appearing in Las Vegas and in Colorado ignoring the court in Georgia.Over the last several weeks, Obama’s attorney, Michael Jablonski, had attempted several tactics to keep this case from moving forward. He first tried to have it dismissed, then argued that it was irrelevant to Obama. After that, Jablonski argued that a state could not, under the law, determine who would or would not be on a ballot and later, that Obama was simply too busy with the duties of office to appear.After all these arguments were dispatched by the Georgia Court, Jablonski, in desperation, wrote to the Georgia Secretary of State attempting to place Obama above the law and declared that the case was not to he heard and neither he nor his client would participate.Secretary of State, Brian Kemp, fired back a letter hours later telling Jablonski he was free to abandon the case and not participate but that he would do so at his and his clients peril.Game on.5 minutes.10 minutes.15 minutes with the attorneys in the judge’s chambers. 20 minutes.It appears Jablonski is not in attendance as the attorneys return, all go to the plaintiff table 24 minutes after meeting in the judge’s chambers.Has Obama’s attorney made good on his stated threat not to participate? Is he directly ignoring the court’s subpoena? Is he placing Obama above the law? It seems so. Were you or I subpoenaed to appear in court, would we or our attorney be allowed such action or, non action?Certainly not.Court is called to order.Obama’s birth certificate is entered into evidence.Obama’s father’s place of birth, Kenya East Africa is entered into evidence.Pages 214 and 215 from Obama’s book, “Dreams from My Father” entered into evidence. Highlighted. This is where Obama indicates that, in 1966 or 1967 that his father’s history is mentioned. It states that his father’s passport had been revoked and he was unable to leave Kenya.Immigration Services documents entered into evidence regarding Obama Sr.June 27th, 1962, is the date on those documents. Obama’s father’s status shown as a non citizen of the United States. Documents were gotten through the Freedom of Information Act.Testimony regarding the definition of Natural Born Citizen is given citing Minor vs Happersett opinion from a Supreme Court written opinion from 1875. The attorney points out the difference between “citizen” and “Natural Born Citizen” using charts and copies of the Minor vs Happersett opinion.It is also pointed out that the 14th Amendment does not alter the definition or supersede the meaning of Natural Born. It is pointed out that lower court rulings do not conflict with the Supreme Court opinion nor do they over rule the Supreme Court Minor vs Happersett opinion.The point is, to be a natural born citizen, one must have 2 parents who, at the time of the birth in question, be citizens of the United States. As Obama’s father was not a citizen, the argument is that Obama, constitutionally, is ineligible to serve as President.Judge notes that as Obama nor his attorney is present, action will be taken accordingly.Carl Swinson takes the stand.Testimony is presented that the SOS has agreed to hear this case, laws applicable, and that the DNC of Georgia will be on the ballot and the challenge to it by Swinson.2nd witness, a Mr. Powell, takes the stand and presents testimony regarding documents of challenge to Obama’s appearance on the Georgia ballot and his candidacy.Court records of Obama’s mother and father entered into evidence.Official certificate of nomination of Obama entered into evidence.RNC certificate of nomination entered into evidence. DNC language does NOT include language stating Obama is Qualified while the RNC document DOES. This shows a direct difference trying to establish that the DNC MAY possibly have known that Obama was not qualified.Jablonski letter to Kemp yesterday entered into evidence showing their desire that these proceedings not take place and that they would not participate.Dreams From My Father entered.Mr. Allen from Tuscon AZ sworn in.Disc received from Immigration and Naturalization Service entered into evidence. This disc contains information regarding the status of Obama’s father received through the Freedom of Information Act.This information states clearly that Obama’s father was NEVER a U.S. Citizen.At this point, the judge takes a recess.The judge returns.David Farrar takes the stand.Evidence showing Obama’s book of records listing his nationality as Indoneasan. Deemed not relevant by the judge.Orly Taitz calls 2nd witness. Mr. Strunk.Enters into evidence a portion of letter received from attorney showing a renewal form from Obama’s mother for her passport listing Obama’s last name something other than Obama.State Licensed PI takes the stand.She was hired to look into Obama’s background and found a Social Security number for him from 1977. Professional opinion given that this number was fraudulent. The number used or attached to Obama in 1977, shows that the true owner of the number was born in the 1890. This shows that the number was originally assigned to someone else who was indeed born in 1890 and should never have been used by Obama.Same SS number came up with addresses in IL, D.C. and MA. Next witness takes the stand.This witness is an expert in information technology and photo shop. He testifies that the birth certificate Obama provided to the public is layered, multiple layered. This, he testifies, indicates that different parts of the certificate have been lifted from more than one original document.Linda Jordan takes the stand.Document entered regarding SS number assigned to Obama. SS number is not verified under E Verify. It comes back as suspected fraudulent. This is the system by which the Government verifies ones citizenship.Next witness.Mr. Vogt.Expert in document imaging and scanners for 18 years.Mr. Vogt testifies that the birth certificate, posted online by Obama, is suspicious. States white lines around all the type face is caused by “unsharp mask” in Photoshop. Testifies that any document showing this, is considered to be a fraud.States this is a product of layering.Mr. Vogt testifies that a straight scan of an original document would not show such layering.Also testifies that the date stamps shown on Obama documents should not be in exact same place on various documents as they are hand stamped. Obama’s documents are all even, straight and exactly the same indicating they were NOT hand stamped but layered into the document by computer.Next witness, Mr. Sampson a former police officer and former immigration officer specializing in immigration fraud.Ran Obama’s SS number through database and found that the number was issued to Obama in 1977 in the state of Connecticut . Obama never resided in that state. At the time of issue, Obama was living in Hawaii.Serial number on birth certificate is out of sequence with others issued at that hospital. Also certification is different than others and different than twins born 24 hours ahead of Obama.Mr. Sampson also states that portion of documents regarding Mr. Soetoro, who adopted Obama have been redacted which is highly unusual with regards to immigra tion records.Suggests all records from Social Security, Immigration, Hawaii birth records be made available to see if there are criminal charges to be filed or not. Without them, nothing can be ruled out.Mr. Sampson indicates if Obama is shown not to be a citizen, he should be arrested and deported and until all records are released nobody can know for sure if he is or is not a U.S. Citizen.Taitz shows records for Barry Soetoro aka Barack Obama, showing he resides in Hawaii and in Indonesia at the same time.Taitz takes the stand herself.Testifies that records indicate Obama records have been altered and he is hiding his identity and citizenship.Taitz leaves the stand to make her closing arguments.Taitz states that Obama should be found, because of the evidence presented, ineligible to serve as President.And with that, the judge closes the hearing.What can we take away from this?It’s interesting.Now, all of this has finally been entered OFFICIALLY into court records.One huge question is now more than ever before, unanswered.WHO THE HELL IS THIS GUY?Without his attorney present, Obama’s identity, his Social Security number, his citizenship status, and his past are all OFFICIALLY in question.One thing to which there seems no doubt. He does NOT qualify, under the definition of “Natural Born Citizen” provided by SCOTUS opinions, to be eligible to serve as President.What will the judge decide? That is yet to be known, but it seems nearly impossible to believe, without counter testimony or evidence, because Obama and his attorney chose not to participate, that Obama will be allowed on the Georgia ballot.It also opens the door for such cases pending or to be brought in other states as well.Obama is in it deep and the DNC has some…a LOT…of explaining to do unless they start looking for a new candidate for 20

So many threads this could go in... Famous people reading the forum, but the Presidents advisers are taking JDN's reading of the (Christian) Savior supporting a tax and spend agenda as Gospel.

Imagine the MEDIA uproar if this was President Michele Bachmann claiming to have the higher powers on her side. (Yes she would do that, and no should would not get a pass on it!)

What church in Washington have the Obama's joined (NONE!) so that I might double check his interpretation of scripture.

The President also shamelessly copied JDN's approach to no comment on 'Thou Shalt Not Kill', 'Thou Shalt Not Covet...' or making a distinction between giving and TAKING: 'Thou Shalt not Steal'.

Follow up to Romney's gaffes and the conservative criticism e.g. Charles Krauthammer, Marc Levin) that Gov. Romney cannot explain conservatism, note that his general election opponent will not be heading into the fall contest gaffe-free either.----Here is a link for the quote and some commentary:http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/02/render-unto-barry.php

Yes, it is frustrating how the media will knit pick with anything any Republican will say and ignore all the deceit and lies an mispeaks from Obama. Escept for Drudge, Fox and talk radio.

Without them we would have never heard of Wright, Ayres, Alinsky, or any of it. Th public would have been totally decieved about Obama's nature.

Every SINGLE day we hear CNN etc going off on every tiny minute thing a Repub says in great detail. For ex. the new thing is Romney's not concerned for the poor thing. Totally taken out of context. Truthfully I am not losing sleep over the poor and YES they do have safety net as Mitt pointed out when one hears the whole statement. Yet the MSM will run with this. There are clearly too many Dem party operatives in the MSM who will eagerly daily bash Repubs every chance they get - the jurn-off liist

Crafty, taken from AfPak discussion: "At the moment, it looks to me that Baraq will win."

Polls will back you up on that today and the economy will likely improve slightly more by then. Still I disagree. For the last 7 months Republicans have b een shooting themselves more than exposing and attacking the President. They also have been targeting the right wing, but the centrist seems to have won. For the next 7 months the leader will mostly be targeting Obama and gradually the rest of the party will jump on board. There is no enthusiasm on the right for Mitt over Newt or vice versa (low turnout), but there will be enthusiasm for Romney and Rubio turning out the incumbent. -----------------Funny line regarding Pres. Obama making the same political mistakes as Jimmy Carter:

" I watched the “Meet the Press” roundtable this morning, and I was struck with the firestorm David Brooks set off by criticizing the Obama Administration’s moves against the Catholic Church... One of the things that turned evangelical voters against Jimmy Carter in 1980 (evangelicals had supported him strongly in 1976) were administration rules affecting the tax exempt status of private religious schools. It got almost no attention from the New York Times, etc, but was a huge issue for religious voters in 1980, and was a lit fuse that blew up in churches across the country. I’m amazed at how often Obama seems to imitate many of Carter’s political mistakes. It’s like he was in college or something smoking dope at the time and didn’t pay attention. Oh, wait. . ." - Presidential biographer Steven Hayward writing at Powerline today.

"I have warned here more than once that Republicans currently lack coherence and message on foreign policy. Some of you have commented, in effect, so what? The economy sucks and the Reps will win on that. Wesbury argues, and in the last 9 months his track record as a prognosticator exceeds that of our GM, the economy is improving and the meme of the Pravdas goes in the same direction. At the moment, it looks to me that Baraq will win."

I'll point out that our economic improvement results only from fraudulent stats and media spin. One hard jolt and the house of cards topples. Wait for the Greeks to default and we'll see just how bright things are. Meanwhile many other bad things loom on the horizon.

That would be more persuasive if the Rep candidates themselves were making the case. Maybe they need to read this forum. Both Mitt and Newt have substantial weaknesses as candidates which Baraq has the budget to hit them with. Rep vote numbers in the primary are not strangle Baraq will get away with a lot with the aid and support of the Pravdas. His campaign themes, recently aired out, play well to the ear and to the emotion. To the extent that the Reps offer any coherence on foreign affairs it is contrary to the mood of the majority, which has lost confidence in the competence of Washington to lead foreign adventures.

All true, and his drivel almost makes sense (if you are Rip van Winckle), but... Is the voter better off now than he or she was $5 trillion ago? Can Obama run against a do-nothing congress when the do-nothing chamber is still led by his colleague Harry Reid of Pelosi-Reid-Obama fame. Does the Obama agenda correct anything that is holding us back? Will the local candidates even campaign with him in the vulnerable districts?

The news may say unemployment percentages are down, but millions leaving the workforce is a force that can't be ignored. Fewer people pulling the wagon and more people riding on it is a very heavy, double-negative force that can't be papered over with words.

Romney may not be articulate in supply side economics, but he has enough specifics in his plan to actually turn things around if elected and if his proposals were to be enacted. Also, he sounded quite persuasive to me the other day ridiculing the Obama campaign theme (I can't find the quote) - a vision in failure reduced to telling us it would have been even worse without them. We can do better than that.

Weaknesses of Mitt or Newt aside, the contrast will be stark. The excitement level in the black inner city where I frequent is zero. If they show up they might pull the lever for him one more time, but not for anything historic or for any expectation of bettering themselves or their families. The white vote is admittedly lost for Barack. The Jewish support is way down. The Hispanic vote is conflicted. The youth vote would have to be stupid with blinders on to think the current direction brings jobs to next year's college graduates. He won't win the Catholic vote by 10 points again! Best case for Obama IMO is to sound out moderate themes through November, paint his opponents as scary villains, hope for an uneventful economy and eek out some kind of close popular victory - just like Al Gore did in 2000.

This is not the recovery of 1984; this is more like Jimmy Carter's 2nd or3rd term. You and I might not be impressed with Romney, but the moderates and independents I know are drawing a collective sigh of relief to not have a fire breathing far right winger (like a Bachmann, for example) as their only real alternative to Pres. Obama.------------Dick Armey, now President of Freedomworks, has it right (must be reading the forum). If you are conservative and uninspired by the Presidential choices remaining as most conservatives are, then put your money and energies this year right now into winning the House and Senate where the bills will need to be written and passed. Margins and victors in congress will be crucial to governing no matter who wins the Presidential race.

That would be very troubling if we had a declining population, BUT WE DON'T, so it much, much worse.

Why? What happened / what changed in Jan 2007?

In 2007 Sen. Obama along with Sen. Biden along with Sen. Hillary Clinton, and Senators Reid, Durbin, Dodd, Boxer, Schumer and Bernie Sanders, all moved to majority power in congress along with Speaker Pelosi and 232 other House Democrats, they took control of both chambers at once making the scapegoat Pres. Bush truly a domestic lame duck 2 years early and then they took the White House too. New Mpls Rep. Ellison put his hand on the Holy Qur'an in Jan 2007 and together with his co-conspirators they promised the transformational destruction of American wealth and they got it. What they didn't seem to know is that employment involves employers, investors and a healthy, globally competitive business climate.

What is ironic is that there is actually more government money available to redistribute under pro-growth policies than there is under redistribution focused policies.

If Republicans cannot make that most obvious and provable case persuasively now, then we all deserve what we get. Per GM, buy your ammo and canned food now and beat the hoarders.